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For instance.. if I just run straight through the front door and kill Raedric without talking to the priest up stairs or dealing with the necromancer chick, does it effect the amount of xp I get from the quest at the end? Or is it more efficient to just bypass everything.

I have taken this great post as a stepping stone for us towards a solution for that hotly debated xp system issue. This thread is all about the proposed idea by redneckdevil, nothing else. If you just want to pour your heart out about which xp system you prefer, such as kill xp or quest-xp-only, please do that elsewhere, in the appropriate threads. There are three of them running as of now, so there's plenty of space for venting your xp preferences and frustrations! Here, we will stay true to our topic, namely the apparent solution to this divide in the PoE community. Make the two xp systems compatible! I will forcefully narrow down this topic even more by telling you which two xp systems that are up for a potential toggle in PoE: 1) The one that Josh & Co has been tinkering on - it's there vision for the game, so it's in by definition. Atm in the beta, and has been clearly stated by the dev Sking - this is quest xp only, including a few xp progress points within the quest, if its long enough. Note! This is not a thread for discussing the merits of that system, or whether it's an objective xp system, or if it lives up to any perceived promises from Obsidian, etc. 2) The xp system that was in BG2: kill xp, xp for disarming traps, xp for opening locks, xp for a few dialogue choices and simple deeds. This is a system that Josh & Co are very familiar with, and it is one that they are able to insert into a game with hand-placed enemies within the time that is left before the game is released. Obviously, it won't be an exact copy of AD&D or D&D 3.0/3.5 (or even 4), but it will have all of its basic elements and structures, yes even xp tables that the devs can tweak, and so forth. If you just like the idea, and have nothing to contribute as far as the details go, and exactly how it will be implemented for all difficulty levels, just pop in and write "+1" or "agreed", I suppose, but I'd rather see that you put your little grey cells to good use and expand and/or elaborate upon it. Have a nice discussion. Hopefully, the devs have already considered this solution! I mean, they did listen and made us a toggable UI after the very heated debate about that: one minimalistic and one classic. I hope we get to see that again: one minimalistic and one classic/old-school xp-system as a toggle for a peaceful co-existence between at least those two xp system factions in our community. Have a fun discussion!

So, a lot of discussion on the XP system. I will say I will be dissapointed if Obsidian decides to turn around and re-introduce XP per foe. And since we're so soon into development, why not use a system that's so userfriendly for developers (and thus, modmakers) that it saves time for so much more content. And has an inherent infinite fix? And flexability to kill stuff after peace and still get some XP? The system I propose: Instead of spreading out the XP everywhere, in monster files, dialogs, quests etc. there will be one central XP file. And it's simply a list with the XP-name on the left and the XP-value on the right. Super easy to create and modify. This list would be stored in the savegame and adjusted approximately. That does mean any potential savegames need updating if any tweaks are made after release in a patch though, sure. Now what is that for? For every XP-improvement in the game. Every objective/quest etc. has a spicific XP-name (matching the value set before). Now when the function is called all the entirety of the XP-value set in the above file is overhauled to the player. When modifying encounters thus no longer you have to seek for the specific encounter, just look in the XP-file. But of course, it would be kind of bad if it just worked as that. If the XP-function is passed "as is" the entirety of the XP is given. However if a value is applied instead so much XP is given IF the XP-value in the file allows so much. If not the XP-value is given (if 0 that means nothing). Probably confusing without example, so here's an example. "RedDragonFight" has a value of 8 (so 8 XP). Since it's a big fight and the peace resolution is far easier that one is set to "5". So you now have the following situtation; * Killing the dragon wileds 8XP * Making peace wields 5XP * Making peace wiedls 5XP, killing the dragon afterwards wields 3XP, not 8XP (since the value was 8, drained by 5 by peace, so 3 remained. And even if it called for 8XP it did only give 3 since the XP-value only allowed so much). And that without having to add scripts to check wheter you made peace and therefore lower the XP reward, or giving insane extra XP for doing both. And if you want to make fighting the dragon more rewarding just change the value to 9. And you don't need to modify a creature file, or modify a script to give more XP if you made peace and then kill, it's all there in just modifying a single value. Of course it can be used for much than 2 options. Does a NPC need 3 parts and each need to give 3XP? Assign 9 as questvalue and to the script that gives XP give 3. Added bonus is that if some bug allows you to keep talking the NPC and gather XP-bonusses this also prevents an infinite exploit since once the value's drained, the value's drained. This system would severly lower the "if, else" of XP giving most other complex RPG systems would require to imply, or otherwise risking giving the player multiple rewards each of the complete full value. I can see it saving developers and modders a great deal of time, especially during the balancing phase. And it allows for the player to do what they want. You don't need to remove that party or make them non-killable after you slipped by and got stealth XP in fear of giving double-rewards. If you kill them the XP-reward triggers, notices it's drained and gives nothing. So, anyone see any events where such a system would break, what would be easier, if this actually sounds really hard (as modmaker) to use, problems, additions, anything else? I would look forward to hear constructive feedback, either positive or negative...